Odile Beniflah of Carpooling.com practices ridesharing as a way to save resources and meet new friends (Image: Courtesy of Odile Beniflah)

The next time you drive, try ridesharing as an alternative to driving alone.

Each time you drive alone, the empty seats in your car go to waste. Here’s the ‘sitch': there are 1 billion cars on the planet and every car that’s now driving down a country road or highway has an average of 3.75 empty seats. Now multiply that by 3 trillion highway vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. each year. And factor in the $8,000 cost to own a car and the fact that the average American commuter spends 38 hours a year stuck in traffic. Come on you people: wake up and stop the waste. Try Ridesharing instead.

Solo Drivers Need to Go to Rehab!

For me, driving alone is like smoking. People get into the habit of doing it at a young age and simply can’t stop. They may suffer nasty side effects such as huge costs, sitting alone in traffic, or stress during long commutes but can’t seem to see a solution to their misery! Meanwhile, those who don’t have a car (like me) are always looking for a lift. We car-free people may love buses and trains but what’s better than ridesharing with friendly people?

Carpooling.com services 9 countries in Europe and will be available soon in the U.S. (Image: Carpooling.com)

Enter Carpooling.com for Ridesharing

When I moved to Germany in 2008, I discovered “mitfahrgelegenheit” and “mitfahrzentrale”: a service that connects drivers and passengers so they can share their rides together and share costs for gas. It was such a simple idea and it worked: the site was as big as Expedia and LastMinute! I was so excited that it was easy to land a job when the site expanded internationally as carpooling.com.

So Why Not Practice Ridesharing in America?

To those who come up with lame excuses such as lower gas prices, cultural differences, entrenched consumerism, selfishness, inconvenience, fear of strangers etc., I say Not So Fast! Americans love FUN and FREEDOM — so ridesharing via a service like carpooling.com would be perfect here as well. And please stop saying that these green, social, smart behaviors only happen in Europe! I personally believe that America is the country that can make carpooling and ridesharing so cool that the entire world will follow. This is why I can’t wait to see the launch of carpooling.com in the U.S. Stand by…it’s coming SOON.

Ridesharing is Fun – Time to Show and Tell

Think about booking a ride in a fancy 4×4, comfortable sedan, funky pick-up truck, classy Cadillac, outrageous Jacuzzi-limo, luxury convertible, cruising Harley-Davidson, urban Zipcar, VW minibus. Imagine picking up a chef, a writer, a baseball fan, a folk singer from Tennessee, a French tourist, a student in philosophy, a developer of violent video games, a Kindergarten teacher, a BBQ master.

Ridesharing with Odile Beniflah is never boring (Image: Courtesy of Odile Beniflah)

Technology has finally enabled the ridesharing revolution to take off. With smartphones, people can now offer or book seats on-the-go. With user profiles and social networks, people can get to know each other online before meeting en route.

So I am calling all the people who already carpool “21st century style” to speak up and share their stories of cheap, convenient, happy, comfortable transportation. Please show and tell the world about how great ridesharing can be.

Welcome to the Peer-to-Peer Sharing Economy and a World of Infinite Possibilities

Now you can sell empty seats and reduce your car ownership costs by 75%. You can have access to millions of individual, affordable ride options. Carpooling and ridesharing is a real opportunity to celebrate equity and diversity, and to put human relationships back at the center of our daily lives.

So What Can You Do Until Carpooling.com is Launched in the U.S.?

Here’s how you can start to get out of your solo-driving addiction and start ridesharing. Start reaching out to friends and colleagues and offer them a ride. Ask neighbors if they want to join you on a trip to IKEA. Start a carpool group on Facebook. (Offer a free lunch to anyone driving you to a beach this summer.) And if you are lucky enough to travel to Europe this summer, carpooling.com — it’s up and running in 40 countries.

All you need is to use your imagination and watch out for that ridesharing bug: it’s contagious!

About the Author

Odile is responsible for promoting carpooling.com around the world. She has been living car-free with her husband and 3 children in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany and the U.S. and is an active promoter of sustainable transportation. She is passionate about the sharing economy and the use of technology as a way towards a more human, sustainable future. Odile loves to get to know her local community and tries to create positive change in every place she lives.

About 20 years ago, I (a New Yorker) spent a week working in a client’s headquarters in downtown San Francisco. I stayed with friends in the suburbs. At that time, the local government set a ban on one-person cars. Finding a passenger was mandatory. My friend set me up with a friend of hers (Sarah) who drove into the city every day. What a “win-win” situation. Sarah was permitted to take her car into San Francisco and I was able to avoid negotiating the BART – a more pleasant subway system than New York’s, but unfamiliar to me. In addition, we enjoyed each other’s company.

Ridesharing reminds me of the ride board at my college. People would post a note if they were going somewhere (and wanted riders to split the costs), and others would look for rides going their way. A superb way to meet new people and avoid the bus (or renting a car and traveling alone.)

My big fear with ridesharing, however, is that it will dissuade people from taking the bus or train. Do you have any info on this, Odile?

Jacquie, on the contrary! People who rideshare are smart consumers who like to choose the best transportation alternatives (i.e. 46% of carpooling.com users take the bus or the train at least once a week).

Furthermore on carpooling.com, people can book train and bus tickets when they don’t find a ride that fits their need and guess what? carpooling.com became one of the biggest resellers of train tickets in Germany in just a couple of months. So ridesharing is definitely very good news for rail and bus companies.

I wish we in NYC could rideshare our taxi rides. I try to share cabs at airports — gets me out faster and cheaper, and I usually wind up making a new friend, or at least having a great conversation that speeds the ride. I even wrote about this recently: http://www.wehatetowaste.com/anyone-want-to-share-a-cab/

Has anyone seen this work in any cities in the world? How can we make this happen to/from JFK or LAG?

Don’t forget about ridesharing apps like SideCar! Awesome, background checked community drivers ready to pick you up and help you get around your city with the tap of an app. Also, all rides are donation based which is cool. You enter your pickup and drop off points for each ride and the app tells you a suggested donation for that trip! AKA what people usually pay for trips of that distance. It’s sweet. I use it all the time here in Seattle.

I think a program like this would be hugely successful on college campuses where only a limited number of students have access to cars! I know many campuses already have student-run ride boards, but having an organized (!) forum to organize shared rides (to the grocery store, Target, Walmart, etc) would significantly reduce the need for individual taxi rides. Plus, it would be a great way to get to know other students!

Carpooling makes perfect sense! Saving costs on gas and tolls are all positives in my book. When I was in college, whenever we went to the movies, bars, or food shopping, we ALWAYS carpooled. It just saves a bunch of time, especially if you are going to the same place, and sparks great conversations. I do think that a program like this would be very beneficial on college campuses. Even when my friends and I take trips to the beach this summer, it obviously makes no sense to take two cars to the beach if we can all fit in one. We split the costs of gas, tolls, and fee into the beach, which we all save money doing anyway.

As someone who is transitioning from living in a big city back to a smaller town, this issue is something I find increasingly relevant. While living in the city, I biked everywhere. My friends all biked too, which made transportation together interactive and social. To put it in four words – it was a blast. Now that I’m back to driving to get just about everywhere, I really miss the interaction inherent in bicycling. That being said, I constantly offer to take my friends driving with me as an excuse to spend more time with them, talking or singing to our favorite songs.

A common criticism of technology is that it has been changing socialization as humans. This critique is essentially mourning the reduced face-to-face interaction. Carpooling.com combats this. This reason is why I feel that initiatives like ridesharing are so beneficial from a variety of perspectives. We can use the social nature of the Internet to connect fun and interesting people, while subsequently saving the planet one road trip at a time.

I remember taking a rideshare from Toronto to Montreal, which could have easily been a stressful experience since we got caught in a traffic jam that added five hours to our commute. Thankfully, my fellow passengers were fantastic and the entire car felt like a family by the fourth hour. We sang songs and played trivia games to pass the time. That experience was something that a solo-drive just cannot parallel. Not only are rideshares a better alternative for the planet, but they can also be just a whole lot of fun!

To me, ridesharing seems like a no-brainer. Suburbia and the commuter culture has increased so drastically in America, that carpooling into cities should definitely take off. There are ways to discourage people from driving to work by limiting parking and raising parking costs, yet for many, the fastest and easiest mode of transportation is by car regardless of the cost. The book A Country of Cities argues that if the U.S. population was concentrated in cities, many of our environmental problems would be solved. This requires major improvements to our public transportation system in the form of high-speed trains, for example. While projects are underway, they are very costly and a few years away. For now, those that can should carpool as much as possible, especially when sites such as carpooling.com can enhance communication among commuters. This will save car-owners money and help reduce CO2 emissions: win-win!

I used to drive to and from NJ & VA for school and always looked for people to ride with! It made the ride go so much faster and when gas went through the roof it was essential to split the cost. When I didn’t have my car at school with me, I always went on Facebook or the University ride board to find a lift. I was a Senior when we finally got a bus that would bring you up to DC- but even then I often opted to share rides because the bus only came twice a day (3am & 3pm). Plus, it was fun to be with people in an intimate setting. Cars can be very isolating, unlike public transit that forces you to interact with other people. Rideshares break down these boundaries.
Now that carpooling.com is up and running, I’m will definitely utilize it! Thanks for sharing such a great resource.